The purpose of this project is to identify and explain the risk factors for sterility among sub-Saharan African women. This will greatly facilitate our understanding of the cultural and behavioral determinants of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in this world region. Identifying the distinctive matrix of cultural, social, and individual characteristics that provide an explanation for sterility and STDs will be a major goal of this project. A series of theoretically informed empirical models will be developed to answer three basic questions: First, to what extent can variations in sterility rates among sub-Saharan African women be accounted for by demographic characteristics that put them at risk? Second, what are the social patterns and cultural traditions that provide a context, or markers, for these sexual behaviors and practices? Finally, to what extent can a cultured geography of high and low sterility populations be mapped that can provide a guide useful to both research and health policy? The approach outlined in this proposal will provide, for the first time, a comprehensive empirical analysis of all those characteristics linked directly or indirectly to sterility and disease transmission that until now have only been a matter of speculation. The major methodological innovation is the merging of data and interpretive perspectives of two different social traditions. Analyses will be based on data from large scale probability samples of African nations.